Happy Monday Writers & Readers & All You Nosey Folks, Too!

Depending on how long you’ve been rocking with me, you know this newsletter began as me writing about midlife and you know what? I kind of miss it! So I think I’m going to start mixing some of that writing back in.

In this week’s newsletter I write about how I keep the barnacles off my heels (sorry no free feet pics!) because apparently in your old age your feet, like everything else, lose their suppleness.

I’m also talking about squirrels and writing — wait, what do squirrels have to do with being a better writer? It’s a digression, but stick with me.

And lastly, you’ll notice an ad in this week’s newsletter for ReMarkable, which feels REMARKABLE to me because I have one and I love it. If you’ve ever taken a writing workshop with me, it’s the e-ink table I use to mark up your submissions and make notes on readings in real-time during class.

SIKE! I lied, one more thing: I’m popping by the post office today to drop off the Mail Club letters, so keep an eye on your mailboxes. And if you want to be included in February’s Mail Club, all you gotta do is upgrade.

— Minda

Behind every successful year is honest reflection. This workbook, written by Shane Parrish and reMarkable, helps you find clarity so patterns become visible.

Traditional annual reviews add goals, tasks, and pressure. This is different. It helps you strip everything back to see what to change in your the ahead.

Ready to identify what matters?

Start your annual review

There are no affiliate links in this section. This is just stuff I like!

Let me preface this with the fact that I’m not the kind of woman that feels like her feet need to be in pristine condition at all times (my apologies to the foot fetishists for dashing your dreams!) but I don’t like any part of my body to be rough. I’m also someone that’s a big proponent of shoeless households, so even if my feet aren’t first-date ready, they do need to stay ready to not-embarrass-me. And in the past year or so, I’ve noticed that if I am not vigilant about my feet the situation gets out of control quick! So here are some things I’ve been doing that are low-hassle and make a major difference.

Glass Nail File

A decade ago, I started carrying around a glass nail file. I bought one on a whim at the cash wrap at an Ace Hardware, then discovered you can buy like $50 for $1 (I’m exaggerating y’all!) off the Internet, so I buy them in bulk now and any time someone compliments me on one, I give it to them. Aside from looking badass, a glass nail file is a better sensory experience than an emery board.

Recently, after getting fed up with pumice stones, I learned they make glass nail files for your heels! I do not use a sponge to clean my dishes (I use a Korean netted dish cloth) because they get stinky and who knows what’s going on inside of there (SCIENCE DOES AND IT’S NOT GREAT). Pumice stones have the same problem. No matter how much you clean them, they’re always gonna have bits of whatnot in them. They also can be crumbly or too rough, I just hate them.

But you don’t want to use those flesh grater things either. It’s very traumatic to your skin and causes the callouses to grow back double time. You’ll notice they’ve stopped using them at nail salons.

The glass heel file is abrasive enough to get the job done and is way more sanitary because it’s glass so it’s easy to clean it thoroughly. I use a Dr. Scholl’s one with a heavy duty handle. I use it a couple times per week when I’m in the shower. If it’s your first go round, you’re probably gonna need a few sessions to get back down to smooth, but the glass heel file will get you there (and yes, you can use it on the bottoms of your feet too!).

Daily in the shower, I use Hanni’s fragrance-free Splash Salve. Years ago, when I used to live in Denver, I used to buy a similar product from a woman at the farmer’s market. You rub it into your skin and have a quick rinse before toweling off. This serves as a moisturizing base that you’ll then layer your lotion over. I get eczema flares in the winter, so I need all the dream creams I can get. I’ve also taken to rubbing my heels down after I hit them with the glass nail file. Do be careful though because it can make your shower a little slick.

Now, I didn’t have high hopes for these, but I bought them anyways because I hate sleeping in socks and these just cover your heels. And these foot sleeves work!! You’re not supposed to use them with lotion, so I’ll lotion up and then wait a bit for it to fully absorb before pulling on these little heel covers. I typically will wear a pair of socks over them and then slide my feet into my house shoes. Sometimes, I’ll sleep in them as well. But they really do a great job of keeping your heels moisturized and you can use them a ton of times. There’s a lot of different brands so shop around for the best price.

There are other measures I take when I really want to pamper my feet, but these are the weekly/daily products I use (and in the summer, I do monthly pedicures!).

The beef with the squirrel on my balcony began with a half-eaten crusty Belgian waffle it dragged out of some trash bin somewhere to enjoy on my outdoor furniture, which had been covered up for the winter. I didn’t seem him, I just saw the evidence. I swooped the waffle into a trash bag, knotted it and tossed it.

Then, last month, I was making Puppy Chow to bring to a friend’s house, the recipe called for letting the mix sit outside to harden in the cold so you could use less powder sugar to coat it. I set my timer, set the bowl out with a towel covering it, and looked up at some point to see the squirrel going to town on my dessert! I shooed it away and tossed the mix. It had the audacity to double back and stare at me through the sliding glass door — the nerve!

I now regularly scan my balcony for sightings of that squirrel. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye,I see one skittering down the stucco wall opposite my balcony and my mind registers it as a rat, until I fully turn my head and catch a glimpse of it’s fluffy tail.

A few weeks ago, I shared a new essay by Kiese that had a love letter disguised as a digression as the body of the essay. Because that squirrel’s been on my mind, it reminded me T Kira Madden also wrote a very good essay that reads like a digression but is about much weightier matters and it has to do with squirrels invading her attic.

I once had a professor say that there’s a difference between writing being out of control and writing that creates the feeling of being out of control. The latter actually takes a lot of control to pull off. It’s the same with what I’m now casually calling a “digression essay.” The writer hasn’t actually gotten distracted and gone off on tangent. Instead, they’ve made a very precise choice to mimic the way our brains skip from thought to thought.

T Kira uses the saga of the squirrels to keep the essay moving forward in time, but her internal narrative flows from her thoughts about the squirrels violating her home, she speculates what they must be up to, then has thoughts about her partner and the items in her home and the concerns over children and the challenges ahead of them as a queer couple.

In our lives, we’re pumping gas, thinking about that guy who ghosted us and wondering what our mammogram results will be. We’re sweeping shattered glass off our floors, thinking about the doll we loved at three years old and how we’re going to pay this year’s tax bill. Typically, a narrative essay streamlines our internal narrative so as not to confuse the reader. So it’s can be fun to watch a gifted writer experiment with digressions that appear to be distractions at first but are actually serving a vital role in the essay.

In writing we mainly see digressions played for humor (think Samantha Irby) but T Kira and Kiese present examples of how they can function in essays in other ways too. If you feel inspired, try your hand at writing your own digression essay.